Tuesday, October 16, 2012

The Moment

Busy night. May or may not post a longer debate-related thing, but in brief: Obama won but Romney still standing, Fox News will now spend a years trying to ruin Candy Crowley, Obama saying that low-skill jobs that've gone to China "aren't coming back" and that high-end, high-skill tech and science careers are the future of the American economy is the first time a politician with something to lose has told the HARD TRUTH about jobs since John McCain said it four years ago.

However... for me, there was only one moment that stood out, and unlike a lot of people (so far) it's not Mitt getting "live fact-checked" by the moderator about Libya.

No, "The Moment" was when Mitt Romney - GOP nominee for the President of the United States in the 21st Century - answered a question about gun violence by saying (in part) that "...women should think about getting married before they have babies" (paraphrased, since the damn thing only just ended) - in other words: "gun violence is committed by hoodlums raised by single mothers."

That he said such a thing isn't the story - the anachronistic myth that ONLY a strong patriarch can managed a family (or anything else) properly is one of THE key animating beliefs of the present day Republican Party.

No, the story is that he said this thing - without a hint of irony! - while standing on the same debate stage mere feet away from a man who was the child of a single mother AND GREW UP TO BE THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

Somehow, I think this is wishful thinking on Bob's part. I really do. If by the end of the week the numbers Im seeing stay the same, it will mean roughly 1/3rd thought Obama won, 1/3rd thought Mitt won, and 1/3rd thought it was a tie... that strikes me as a "no effect" debate.

I think Obama did great in the debate overall, and probably enough to keep himself from losing any more votes. It'll be pretty funny if Obama ends up winning through the electoral college without the popular vote, which might happen. Meanwhile, though, I agree. Romney is a man of extraordinarily limited imagination. I'm surprised you're the first person to point out his attack on single moms.

@MegabyteWhich is to say, the CNN poll is skewed eight points Republican. The one that shows Obama ahead seven points, 46/39, as opposed to the CBS poll among undecideds...where Obama is also ahead seven points, 37 to 30. Although considering the eight point skew, the CNN poll would actually put Obama at something more like 54/39. Which is pretty good.

Regardless of whether or not those statistics are accurate (more often than not, the polls I've seen so far have favored Obama), the fact is that while Romney's bump from the past couple weeks has been helpful to him, they didn't completely turn the tables.

Romney needed this to be a win in order to finish the turnaround. No one is calling it a win. At this point, even if he wins the final debate next week, it will be too little too late. Most people have made up their minds before the last debate, and foreign policy (the subject of the final debate) is rarely a deciding factor.

Even if this debate IS a tie (which really is the most generous scenario we can characterize it for Romney), it still halts Romney's progress and pretty much guarantees Obama's re-election.

At this point, Romney's only serious hope is if Obama does something REALLY stupid in the next couple weeks or if pollsters have really fucked up and are way off-base.

"high-end, high-skill tech and science careers are the future of the American economy is the first time a politician with something to lose has told the HARD TRUTH about jobs"

A politician who told the hard truth about jobs would inform us that the American economy has no future.

But on to your main point. You simply could not be more wrong.

THE PRESIDENT COMMITS MORE GUN VIOLENCE THAN ANY OTHER PERSON ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH.

He is the figurehead of the most violent organization in the world! The only way you could say he isn't is if you believe that gun violence committed against brown people doesn't count. So yes, even though I would never vote for him, Romney in this case was right.

To be fair, and I only say this because I "think" it's true and I'm not fact checking myself:

Didn't Obama's mother get re-married when he was like 3 or 4. And then after he was 10 wasn't he primarily raised by his grandparents and not by his mother?

That's hardly being raised by a single parent. While I agree Romney's comment is totally out of place and unnecessary it's not exactly like Obama was raised in the ghetto of Harlem with just a poor mum, either.

Jesus Bob, at least act like you're trying to be objective. In no way did Mitt Romney say that single moms are responsible for gun violence. He did however make the completely valid observation that the breakdown of the nuclear American family has contributed to the rise in violent crime.

The fact that you think there is some sort of contradiction between these statements, and not in fact one of the most superlative logical agreements in the history of mankind, is so stupendously wrongheaded I find it almost unfathomable. The President runs an organization that stockpiles thousands of nuclear bombs, and sends men with guns all the way across the world to shoot people he's never even met, and you think he's some paragon of pacifism? The ideological blindspot you have in your weltanschauung is so massive I can't even make a yo mama joke about it.

And you call yourself a liberal. At least when guys like Noam Chomsky say they're anti-war, they mean it.

@ Anonymous 2:10 - Like as if the Nuclear family ever even existed in the first place. The idea it even existed is just pure BS. Those that largely believe that kind of stuff are mostly baby boomers who were told to believe through propaganda via 50's television shows and right-wing moralizing programs. Often under the delusion that those times where it was often lionized as perfect in the old days largely due to the fact they were kids during those times, and everything looks good whenever you're a kid. It never did exist. And today's society is just as violent as it was back in those old days. Just that our media has become more aware of it thanks to how large it's grown and thus the people are more informed. Those that think those old days of the dominance of the Nuclear family are more or less being vain about their youth, or vain about their lifetime thinking it was better than this era.

@ Zeno: The American economy does have a future. Just that we have to concentrate our jobs via high-end, high-skill jobs. Those jobs lost overseas will stay lost regardless of whatever tax breaks we give to corporations here, because it will still be more cheaper for them to get manufacturing and agricultural labor done in developing countries. Also, you saying the President shouldn't fight against terrorism? And what do you think we're going to put all those nuclear bombs? You obviously don't know what you're talking about. *Rolls eyes.*

Considering the Romney team is busy trying to spin that "an act of terror" is not terrorism, I'd say that Obama's debate victory has been demonstrated by none other than Team Mittens' panicked attempt at Damage Control.

No it doesn't. Do you remember the last time we had a debt ceiling crisis? Do you remember what our congressmen said back then? They didn't say that if we didn't raise the debt ceiling we would have to drastically cut spending. They said that if we didn't raise the debt ceiling we would DEFAULT. That essentially constitutes an admission that we are incapable of paying back our debts. What happens when what stands between us and borrowing more money isn't some empty gesture of self-discipline, but the willingness of our creditors to continue to lend to us? We'll be fucked. We would then have to chose between a de facto default through inflation, or a de jure default that would result in a shutdown of all government services, federal, state, and municipal, the collapse of all major banks, and a massive devaluation of all dollar denominated financial assets. Believe it or not, a de facto default through inflation is even worse!

We're fucked.

"Just that we have to concentrate our jobs via high-end, high-skill jobs. Those jobs lost overseas will stay lost regardless of whatever tax breaks we give to corporations here, because it will still be more cheaper for them to get manufacturing and agricultural labor done in developing countries."

Labour isn't even the biggest cost component of manufacturing and argiculture because those have become high capital investment industries. The fact of the matter is, BRICs have become the industrial strongholds of the world not just because they have cheap labour, but because they are in fact much friendlier to business. The marginal difference in labour costs could be eliminated with superior automation, and in fact in the future Chinese workers will be much more expensive because of corrections in the capital markets.

"Also, you saying the President shouldn't fight against terrorism?"

If he figured out a way to directly grapple with abstract ideas I'd be impressed.

"And what do you think we're going to put all those nuclear bombs?"

We could put them under a prefabricated moon colony and launch it into orbit.

I always think there's some kind of misunderstanding of the "debt" situation. National debt isn't exactly like people taking loans from a bank. The creditors of the US's national debt are mostly Americans and hold them mostly in the form of government bonds, securities and bills. As govt. bonds are amongst the safest investments for a portfolio (as they are steady income) creditors are unlikely to refuse to lend. Cases like Greece's are unlikely to occur in America as dollars are the standard international form of currency. Also, as the US uses fiat money the Fed could pay the national debt any day, as long as they don't mind completely screwing the world economy.

Manufacturing is clearly not the US's strong suit at this point (aside from highly specialized machinery). The US's strengths are the service and R&D sectors. The US still has a remarkable degree of intellectual capital (esp. considering how many of the important big name universities are located there) and there's been a well-documented immigration of intellectual capital to the States for decades now. I personally think that the US economy should start shifting resources from sectors like simpler manufacturing (cars and such) to research and science. At this point none of the Eastern economies have quite the same level of innovation.

As shocking as that was, the moment that stood out for me was when Romney was talking about immigration, and mentioned military service as one was illegal immigrants could become legal citizens. I thought to myself "Did he just use the 'Service Guarantees Citizenship' bit from 'Starship Troopers'? Wow, once again that movie is eerily prophetic."

"Cases like Greece's are unlikely to occur in America as dollars are the standard international form of currency"

Cases like Greece happened because1. Greek governments used public money to build clientelist systems (and I'm not talking about people voting for a party because said party defended food stamps: I'm talking about people being hired by the Greek state -45% of the working population in Greece "worked" for the state- in exchange of supporting whichever party that was in charge when they were hired)2. Greek governments gave enormous tax deductions to the former supporter of the junta (namely the church and the upper-class, especially the shipowners) in order to bribe them into not trying to re-establish the dictatorship3. The Simitis administration cooked the books to allow Greece into the Euro4. The Karamantis administration cooked the book even more after that

Now, the US federal government does use public money for clientelism (case in point: the Pentagon), but not as much (you don't have 45% of the US population working for the federal government). It does give tax deductions to rich inbred upper-class parasites who would love to turn the US into a straight up dictatorship if only they had the firepower to do so, but not as much (cas in point: VATs end up in government coffers, not in rich businessmen pockets). More importantly, it does not practice the sort of book-cooking that previous greek governments used: you don't see the US government saying, "you know what, this year's deficit is worth 200 billions" instead of admitting that it's 1,1 trillions: cooking the books then being found out is a great way to suddenly become unable to borrow from anywhere.

"More importantly, it does not practice the sort of book-cooking that previous greek governments used:"

The government ensures over a trillion dollars of student loans, and even given the fact over half of youth are unemployed, still assumes that those are worth PAR! The kind of accounting the government does would put Enron to shame.

@Smpoza: Sorry, but I don't think so. The fact that CNN is you "honest" poll makes your view here very dubious.

My own, honestly came off of someone's comment on twitter... and it kinda matched what I saw with my own eyes... so Im going with that one making sense. Sorry, but if Bob is the only one commenting about this line INSTEAD of news media as has been commented here, that says his "moment" really wasn't.

Just as I thought the two big moments were the Embassy in Lybia and FastNFurious, but... somehow I don't think they will be mentioned much either... especially the news network that ran the debate considering their moderator intercepted here for the President.

In any case, we will see in a few days/a week for certain... If the momentum changes that is the best sign of who won... since, you know, that was Obama's goal... stop the bleeding from the 1st debate.

But if swingstates keep switching to Mitt... then Obama didn't do enough and even though he may still have tied the debate, he lost.

@Pat Actually, no... Obama's job tonight was to stop that progress... A tie means no minds were changed... in short, momentum continues. Obama had to win tonight.

@Nixou: Actually, Im pretty sure the point to that is that the President had to have the moderator answer for him.... I mean the man was lying about it being around a youtube video to the UN for God's sake! If you don't believe me, go watch his UN speech. It's there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcXjhikIz6o&feature=player_embedded

I've pointed it out around the 10 minute mark to my brother who being "Mr. Republican" somehow missed it and thought he had finally admitted the truth.

But that is why it's such a big deal... he was caught lying through his teeth to us all.

Besides, you don't know panicked till you've made an ad to attack using big bird.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZxs09eV-Vc

@Joshua the Anarchist: Prophetic? hardly... actually one of my childhood friend's father took this path... in VietNam. It's already possible, just not advertised.

You would be correct assuming that Romney's momentum hadn't been slowing. Unfortunately for him, it had been doing just that. Obama was beginning to gain in the polls again the two days or so before the debate. Romney's momentum from the first debate had gone as far as it was going to go and it wasn't enough to clinch the election for him. That's why tonight needed to be a win.

If you are correct and no one's minds were changed, than all of the statistics will stay exactly where they are currently, and in that case, Obama wins.

Obama was not born to a single mother. She was married at the time, and Barack Obama, Sr. and his stepfather Lolo Soetero were very much a part of you Barack's life.

In fact, Barack Obama became a better person in spite of his mother Ann Dunham's oftentimes neglectful and troublesome parenting, and most likely flourished as a person under his grandparent's influence, and they were as traditional as you get.

Romney's wrong about what is necessary to raise a good family, but don't shit on good fathers and good men raising children in the process.

@Anon JamesWhen are you going to realize that just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean you can constantly attack them? Stop being a child. You are clearly obsessed and need psychological help.

Hey Bob, just so you know, Romney got massive amounts of death threats after the debate. I know you would rather try to start another race war with pictures of a racist T-shirt sooo I don't know why i'm linking to this.....

Really, Bob is trying to start a racewar by showing a picture of a white guy wearing a racist t-shirt? Are you serious? You think black people are going to grab pitchforks and go "death to all white folk?" Are you scared of black people, that they're going to tap on your window and go "OOOGY BOOGY BOO" Oh, no the black people are trying to get you.

"You think black people are going to grab pitchforks and go "death to all white folk?" Are you scared of black people, that they're going to tap on your window and go "OOOGY BOOGY BOO" Oh, no the black people are trying to get you. "

Yes: Yes he is.It is the dirty secret of the privileged: they always fear that one day their victims/underlings will become stronger and turn the table on them.Where do you think the "Evil Black Rapist" phantasm comes from? or the "Evil Feminazi will take over the world and reduce males to manservants" for that matter? They come from three centuries of plantation owners wantonly raping their slaves then starting to freak out at the idea that payback was coming everytime some social progress was made and six millenia (at least) of patriarcal supremacy which allowed millions of mediocre and/or lazy dudes to attain a social status at the expense of women more skilled than them. People like Gwen are afraid of their own Karma: what can you do about that?

@Anon JamesNo there is a huge difference, because anyone that disagrees with him has the choice to leave. While he has to deal with your shit time and time again. Bob isn't the only person you obsess with. What are your true goals here? You are not here to share or discuss. Besides even if Bob was acting the same way you do, what a childish answer "What's wrong with giving him a taste of his own medicine?". You are like a child who thinks its okay to justify what you do since he "started" it first.

His goal is to convince readers to side with his ideology. I'm not saying that his methods would convince anybody or that he even has an actual ideology (his understanding of politics is precarious at best), but that's what he's hoping for. It's either that, brain damage, or his existence is so pathetic that he gets fulfillment from any attention whatsoever.

James, do you fuck porcupines? You didn't deny that you fuck porcupines the last time I asked, so I assume you do. You can't fool me.

I'm not one to normal post about Bob's bias, but hearing "women should think about getting married before they have babies" and thinking they're saying "ONLY a strong patriarch can managed a family (or anything else) properly" is really stretching it and shows more about your bias than his. I took it as him saying they should plan for the future of raising a child, which being married helps with.

However, I think what he said implies that most single mothers are making the decision to have a kid without getting married, where most likely, they it was unplanned or they got divorced early on.

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About Me

Bob is a part-time independent filmmaker, part-time amateur film critic and full time Movie Geek. He is heterosexual, a pisces, and a severely lapsed Catholic. He is a tireless enemy of censorship, considers his personal politics "Libertine" and enjoys acting as a full time irritant to overly serious people of ALL political stripes.